China

Chinese ride-hailing company Didi has added Apple Pay as a payment option to the full range of its personal mobility services (via TechCrunch). Apple's mobile payment platform can now be used to fund Didi Express, Didi Luxe, Didi Premier, and ofo, a partner bicycle rental service embedded into the main Didi app. Image via Technode Support of the digital wallet adds another Apple feature to ...

Apple is facing an uphill struggle in its attempts to wean Chinese smartphone users off cheaper rival devices in a saturated mobile market, according to a new Bloomberg report. With Apple gearing up to sell its most ambitious but most expensive iPhone yet, local competitors like Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi are already poised to compete by launching their own less expensive feature-packed devices...

In a statement sent to multiple Chinese media outlets today, Apple said iPhone and iPad users in China can now use WeChat Pay as a payment method for App Store and Apple Music purchases."We are glad to offer users in mainland China the option of WeChat Pay for their favorite mobile app or Apple Music products. We continue to be dedicated to provide multiple simple and convenient payment methods...

A group of 28 developers in China have enlisted a local law firm to file a complaint against Apple in a case alleging that the company engaged in "monopolistic behavior" during some of the actions it has taken to regulate the App Store in China (via The Wall Street Journal). Lin Wei, an attorney with Dare & Sure Law Firm, filed the complaint this week and targeted Apple for removing apps from ...

Apple's difficulty in garnering a larger share of the smartphone market in China has been looked at recently by The Wall Street Journal, which described the ubiquitous mobile app WeChat [Direct Link] as the iPhone's "toughest rival" in the country. Citing data from QuestMobile, on average WeChat is said to have captured nearly 35 percent of each user's monthly smartphone usage time, averaging...

Russia has banned VPNs and other software that enables users to gain anonymous access to websites. The new law was signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday and will come into effect on November 1st (via TechCrunch). Leonid Levin, chairman of the Duma's committee on information policy and technology, was quoted by state-run media as saying that the new law is not targeted at "introducing...

Apple is quietly working with Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited on automotive battery research and development, according to Shanghai-based Yicai Global. The report, citing unnamed sources, claims the two companies have signed a confidentiality agreement to work together on a "scheme" related to the field of batteries, but no specific details were provided. ...

China has reportedly started blocking some features of the WhatsApp messaging service, as authorities continue to tighten controls over the country's internet. WhatsApp users began reporting problems with sharing content on the chat platform yesterday, with many unable to send video and pictures. Despite initial fears of a communications-wide ban of the Facebook-owned service, text-based...

Apple today announced that Isabel Ge Mahe, the current vice president of wireless technologies, has been made the vice president and managing director of Greater China. In her new role, she will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams. According to Apple, Ge Mahe, who has led Apple's wireless technologies software engineering teams for nine years, will provide leadership...

Apple today launched a large-scale promotion in China offering special discounts for consumers who use Apple Pay, in the company's latest bid to counter the dominance of rival digital wallets in the country. Between July 18 and 24, Apple device owners who use the mobile payment system to make purchases in participating merchants across mainland China will receive concessions of up to 50...

Apple has announced it is setting up its first China data center in partnership with a local internet services company, in accordance with the country's new cybersecurity laws introduced last month. Apple told Reuters on Wednesday that the data center would be built in the southern province of Guizhou with data management firm Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry (GCBD) as part of a planned $1...

A popular virtual private network service has been forced to close in China on orders from the government, it emerged on Monday. Bloomberg reported that GreenVPN sent a notice to its customers saying it would end the service from July 1 after "receiving a notice from regulatory departments". VPNs route and encrypt internet traffic to servers outside of the country, making them popular with...

Apple updated its App Store Review Guidelines this week to indicate that developers may now sell virtual currencies in the form of in-app purchases to enable customers to "tip" content creators within apps. Like all other in-app purchases, Apple will now receive a 30 percent cut from the virtual currencies used for tipping. Tipping within apps is popular in China, where live-streaming...

Apple has told several Chinese social networking apps to disable their "tip" functions to comply with App Store rules, according to executives at WeChat and other companies. The tip functions in Chinese messaging platforms are free to use and allow people to send authors and other content creators monetary tips through transfers to mobile wallet accounts. However, according to The Wall Street...

Netflix has signed a licensing deal with a Beijing-based video platform in order to avoid regulatory restrictions and get its content into China's huge entertainment market (via The Hollywood Reporter). The streaming giant announced the news of its content agreement with iQiyi on Tuesday at the APOS industry conference in Bali, Indonesia. "China is an important market for obvious reasons; ...

Chinese mobile maker Xiaomi unveiled the Mi 6, its latest flagship smartphone, at a packed-out event in Beijing on Wednesday. The Mi 5's successor features curved "four-sided 3D glass" and a front that isn't bezel-free like the company's Mi MIX, but the phone does boast a lot of tech for a device that starts at 2499 RMB, or $360 – about half of what a base iPhone 7 goes for in China....

Apple's iOS has dropped to its lowest share of the smartphone market in urban China since July 2014, according to new data collected and shared by Kantar Worldpanel. Today's report specifically details smartphone shares around the world for the three months ending in February 2017. In total, devices running iOS dropped 8.9 percentage points from the same year-ago quarter, receding from 22.1...

A Beijing court has overturned a 2016 ruling that Apple's iPhone 6 violated a Chinese manufacturer's patent, which saw intellectual property regulators attempt to bar sale of the phone in the country (via South China Morning Post). Last June we reported that ailing company Shenzhen Baili filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming that the iPhone 6 violated the patent of its 100c smartphone....

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an interview with Chinese media outlet Caixin on Tuesday, in which he emphasized Apple's ambitions in China and its long-term commitment to investment there. Despite Apple's need to see off competition in the country from the likes of Chinese mobile makers Oppo and Huawei, Cook took pains to explain that Apple isn't simply in China to grab a piece of the market, ...

With the news earlier today that Apple has ditched the PRODUCT(RED) branding for the red iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in China, MacRumors reached out to CEO Tim Cook to find out if any of the proceeds on sales in the country would still be donated to charity in the fight against HIV/AIDS. MacRumors' question: We noticed the (PRODUCT)RED branding is missing from the new red iPhone 7 on the China Apple...